The Precision of God Genesis 17:15-27

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We all admire precision when we see it. Someone does a painting, and we see how exact he or she was, and we are wowed by it.
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We see someone build a house, and we are impressed by how exact all the measurements were and how neatly everything was put together to bring about the finished product.
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I'm amazed when a golfer hits a long putt, or even better, get the hole in one.
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The golfer got the exact right angle and the exact right speed, and the ball went in the hole.
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We worship a God of perfection, of precision. As 1
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Corinthians 14 .33 says, God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. When it says peace there, what it means is order.
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God is a God of order, not a God of chaos. Everything the
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Lord does is precise. Look at the human body. All the parts work together perfectly because the
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Lord designed it. Everything he created is just as he wanted it. Everything the
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Lord says is also exact. God never gets anything wrong. That is why we say the
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Bible is not only inspired by the Holy Spirit, but it's also without error. God can never say anything wrong.
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Everything it says is perfectly right. And one of the ways the Lord shows this is he goes out on a limb, to use human terms, in regard to prophecy.
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The Lord says something long, long ago, and then the fulfillment happens at a later time just as he said it.
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As the Lord said in Isaiah 46, 9 and 10, and I read this during the call to worship, I am
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God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.
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The Lord does this to show his exactness and to bring glory to himself. God is the only one who has precision like this.
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Today we are going to see the Lord's exactness show up in our sermon in Genesis 17, 15 -27, in this continuing conversation between Abraham and God.
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I encourage you to turn there with me. Genesis 17, 15 -27.
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If you don't have a Bible with you, we do have the red Bibles. It's on page 14. What we will see is that the
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Lord is precise and he expects his people to be precise in listening to him.
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So this sermon today is titled The Precision of God and our big idea, our proposition, is the
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Lord's precise proclamation does not change. The Lord's precise proclamation does not change.
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And we are going to see two areas in this text. The first area is the fulfillment matches perfectly the prediction.
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The fulfillment matches perfectly the prediction. You'll see that in the outline in the bulletin.
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But before we get there, let me give you a brief summary of last week's sermon. Last week we looked at the renewal of the promises that the
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Lord made with Abraham. The Lord told Abraham that he would bless him with offspring and that nations and kings would come from him.
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He also told him that this covenant with him that he was making was going to be an everlasting covenant.
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His offspring would experience the blessings of this covenant forever. We saw that there was one requirement that Abraham and his offspring had to do to share in this covenant and that was they needed to be circumcised.
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And this circumcision was intended by the Lord to be a sign to remind
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Abraham's offspring of God's lordship over them and of his commitment to them. If anyone from Abraham's line refused to be circumcised, they would not share in the blessings of the covenant.
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They would be cut off from the people. Today, in verses 15 -27 of Genesis 17, we are going to see some specifics of the promise come into focus.
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The precision of the promise. The Lord said to Abraham on many occasions that this offspring would be his own son.
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And this son would come from his first wife, Sarai. And what we saw a couple weeks ago was the foolish plan that Sarah came up with.
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That, of course, was Sarah gave her servant to Abraham so that she could bear a child.
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But the Lord's plan all along was that this child would come through Abraham and Sarai, not
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Abraham and Hagar. And this is what the Lord repeats in verses 15 and 16.
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And God said to Abraham, As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name
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Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her. And moreover,
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I will give you a son by her. I will bless her and she shall become nations. Kings of peoples shall come from her.
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This special occasion once again marks a name change. Just last week we saw the
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Lord rename Abram, Abraham. Abram meant father. Abraham means the father of a multitude of nations.
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What is interesting is that Sarai's name change to Sarah actually means the same thing. Sarai means princess.
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Sarah means princess. Brianne and I, our daughter's name is
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Alathia. We call her Leah for short. So we actually call her princess Leah sometimes. Parents often call their little girls princess.
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But the name Sarah actually means princess. Now the name change here, even though the meaning is the same,
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Sarai and Sarah, might signify that from this point forward things are going to be different.
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They've had to wait a long time for this promised child to come. And the waiting period is almost over.
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The Lord tells Abraham that he will bless her. Sarah will be blessed because the chosen line is coming through her.
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This line, this is a theme in the Bible. This line that starts with Seth. From Adam to Seth.
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Of course Cain was not the chosen line. Seth is the chosen line. It comes all the way down and now it's to Abraham.
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And eventually this is going to lead to Jesus Christ. This is the chosen line that God is working through.
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And it's going to come through Abraham and Sarah. The Lord tells Abraham that he will bless her.
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And Sarah will be blessed. And the Lord also repeats to Abraham what he said to him in verse 6. That nations and kings would come from them.
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Now what is Abraham's response to this? We would hope his response would be, of course the
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Lord is going to do precisely what he has promised. Sadly, that's not his response.
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Verses 17 and 18. Abraham's response is probably what our response might be.
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He knows science. He knows how the world works. Men who are almost 100 years old do not have children.
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And even more so, women who are 90 do not have children. Abraham is saying this is humanly impossible.
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And you know what? He's right. It is humanly impossible. But what he failed to do is to dwell on who is going to accomplish this.
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Abraham should have believed that the Lord could do this. But he did not. He knew that the
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Lord had supernatural power. He knew this from his own life. And he knew this from history.
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He knew that God created the heavens and the earth. And if we are honest, we cannot stand here and say that we would believe that a 90 year old woman would bear a child either.
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The truth is, sometimes we don't believe the Lord is going to do miraculous things.
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For example, do you believe that the Lord will save your loved one who is lost? We can doubt that He'll do it, right?
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But if we faithfully keep praying, then we are showing that we believe He can do it. We know
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He can do this. We see Him save people all the time. But sometimes, we have momentary lapses where we don't believe
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He can do something. Sometimes we believe, right?
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Lord, I believe You can do all things. Other times we are like, I'm not sure You can do this. And it's foolish for us to have that inconsistency.
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But we do it. This is part of our faith journey. Now what we need to remember and believe is how amazing the
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Lord is. The Lord created everything out of nothing. There was a time when it was just Him.
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The one God. And He created everything that you love in this world out of nothing.
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Do you realize also that one day the Lord will raise people from the dead? If you go by a cemetery, someday those graves are going to be opened up.
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And the Lord Jesus is going to descend from heaven with the angels. And He's going to gather
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His people. He's going to raise these people from the dead. And He's not only going to raise people who have been dead recently.
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But He's going to raise people from the dead who died thousands of years ago. There's nothing left of them.
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As Mark said this week, they're fish poop, right? I mean, they eat. Sorry to quote you there.
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Maybe you didn't want that on tape. But the point is the Lord is able to create something out of nothing.
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He's able to raise the dead out of people who have been dead for thousands of years. Now the
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Lord is able to do the physically impossible. When the Lord caused the Virgin Mary to conceive, the angel speaking to her said,
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For nothing will be impossible with God. Our God does things outside of the natural order that, by the way,
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He set up in the first place. He is able to work around the laws of nature in order to bring more glory to Himself.
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He doesn't submit to the laws He made. He can actually work around. And that's what we call a miracle. Obviously the sun rising in the east, right?
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That's a normal process that He created. But He can do things outside of the laws of nature.
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And He is the only one who can do authentic miracles. Demons can do counterfeit miracles. But God is the only one who can do authentic miracles.
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Abraham's unbelief kept him from believing that God was able to do this. If he were exercising his faith, he would have believed.
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But this was a clear lapse of faith. Which we all do in our journey through the life of faith.
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We all have lapses like this. And Abraham thinks that this is not going to happen. So he offers his solution.
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He thinks that these promises are going to happen through Ishmael. The child who was born through the servant woman,
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Hagar. That's why he said that Ishmael might live before you. You see that in your Bible?
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He says that Ishmael might live before you. That's why he's saying this. He says we are past the time of Sarah giving birth.
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So accomplish your promise through Ishmael. And Abraham kind of half -heartedly believes here.
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He believes the Lord is going to deliver the promise. Just not through the miraculous means that he said in the first place.
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He mistakenly thought the Lord would change his original plan. And call that the fulfillment.
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Do you know what God's response is? This is what it is in verse 19.
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God said, No. But Sarah your wife shall bear you a son. And you shall call his name
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Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.
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So the Lord's response here is a simple no. God has been gracious to Abraham here.
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He would have been right to give him a lecture on his lack of faith. But he says no and simply corrects
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Abraham. The Lord shows that his promise is going to be fulfilled precisely. He said it is going to be fulfilled exactly how he said it would by telling him that this child is going to come through Sarah.
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It's popular in our culture over the centuries really for people to say that they're prophets.
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They can make predictions. And one of the most famous ones from history was a man by the name of Nostradamus.
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Maybe you've heard that name. He was a mathematician, a French mathematician in the 16th century.
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And he wrote a book called Less Propheties. And he made predictions in it.
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And some people say, you know what, those predictions came true. He made predictions about major world events.
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But when people examine his predictions closely, what they notice is that he is intentionally vague.
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And if you're intentionally vague, you can fit a lot of things in there. And you can say, oh, see, it's fulfilled.
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And he was actually an astrologist. Astrologists do this too. They say that the stars can tell the future.
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And those are always intentionally vague as well. That prophecy and biblical prophecy are completely different.
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That prophecy is vague. Biblical prophecy is specific. It's precise.
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Because only God can do it. Because only God knows the future. Exhaustively.
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If the prophecy came through Ishmael, the fulfillment would have been deficient.
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It would have been like phony prophets who make phony predictions. It would be trying to fit something that was not said at the beginning.
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But the Lord knows the future. And he does not work that way. He's exact in his predictions.
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Now, what we don't want to miss here is the love that Abraham has for Ishmael by this statement he has made.
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He's saying, let's accomplish this through Ishmael. What we need to remember is that Ishmael is Abraham's biological child.
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And even though he came about through this foolish plan devised by Sarah and Abraham, Abraham still has this affection for him.
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And the Lord recognizes this love in verse 20. This is what he says. As for Ishmael, I have heard you.
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Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly.
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He shall father twelve princes and I will make him into a great nation. So the Lord already told
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Abraham in chapter 16 that he was going to bless Ishmael because of Hagar's association with Abraham.
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Since Abraham, the blessed man, since his association, because remember
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Genesis 12, 3, those who honor Abraham will be blessed. So by Hagar returning to Abraham, she would be blessed.
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And the way that this blessing would come about is that her offspring, Ishmael, would have lots of people who would come from him.
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And a nation would come from him. And the Lord specifically says that twelve princes will come from Ishmael.
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These twelve princes are listed in Genesis 25, 13 through 16.
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And these men would be princes where the line would be identified with each of these sons.
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Now by the way, the number 12, we've seen this before, haven't we? Actually, we haven't seen it yet.
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But in your Bible reading you've seen this, the number 12. Where else do we see this in the
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Bible? Well, the promised child Isaac would have a son named Jacob and he would have twelve sons through whom the twelve tribes of Israel would come.
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We also see the number 12 show up in the New Testament. How many disciples did Jesus have?
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He had twelve disciples. The twelve apostles represented the foundation of the church while the twelve tribes of Israel represented the foundation of Israel.
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So these two peoples of God, Israel and the church, are represented symbolically by each having a number of twelve as these peoples got started by the
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Lord. The non -chosen line through Ishmael also has the symbolic number 12 as these twelve princes would come from him.
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These princes and these people that would come from Ishmael would all collectively be referred to as the Ishmaelites.
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That's the nation that's coming from Ishmael. The Ishmaelites. Now the Lord makes it clear that Ishmael is not the chosen one.
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The Lord's not changing the plan here. It's not through Ishmael that this promise is going to come about.
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It's coming about through Isaac. And this is what the Lord says in verse 21 about his plan that's always been his plan from the beginning.
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He says, I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.
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So Isaac is the chosen child and Sarah will get pregnant about a year from this conversation that the
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Lord is having with Abraham. And we know that from the conception of a baby to the birth, it's typically about 40 weeks in the womb.
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So the time is soon when Sarah will finally conceive. She's only a few months away from this baby being born.
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And they've had to wait years and years. Keep in mind that Sarah is 90. If you think you've had to wait in your life, think about Sarah.
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Think about Abraham. Abraham was 75 when the Lord first made this promise to him in Genesis 12.
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And now he's 99. And he will be 100 years old when Isaac is born. He had to wait 25 years to see this promise finally reach some fulfillment with his baby being born.
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So it would be an understatement to say that his patience was tested. But as his patience was tested, we would see that the
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Lord would deliver on his promise. And it would be fulfilled exactly the way he said it would be.
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So what we see here in point one in this two -point sermon, the
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Lord's precise proclamation does not change. And the first area it does not change is that the fulfillment matches perfectly the prediction.
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God is a God of order. He's a God of exactness. And we saw that in the first point. The second area the
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Lord's precise proclamation does not change is the obedience must match perfectly the command.
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And this one's for us. The first point focused on God's precision. This one's focusing on the precision he expects from us.
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The obedience must match perfectly the command. Now a transition happens from verse 21 to 22.
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The conversation ends as we see here. When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.
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And what we need to point out here is that our text last week and our text today is all one conversation that the
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Lord had with Abraham. The Lord is appearing to him here, probably as the angel of the
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Lord. This is what we call a theophany, right? When God appears as a human or as an angel.
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What verse 22 says is that God gets up from Abraham and leaves him. Okay, so the conversation ends.
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And now it's up to Abraham to do what he was told. The Lord gave
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Abraham some very specific instructions. And what were those instructions?
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Last week we saw them. He was to be circumcised. And not only him, but his household was to be circumcised.
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And all of his future descendants. The Lord expects him to do this. He expects him to carry this out exactly as he was told.
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And so Abraham must be precise in carrying out this command. The Lord made it clear to him in these two sections in this chapter that he is going to deliver on his promise.
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But Abraham needs to respond by following the Lord's instructions. And in this narrative we just witnessed the lapse of faith by Abraham.
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Now we're going to see him go up. We're going to see a positive. We talked about the roller coaster, the life of Abraham.
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Last week we saw a down. This week we're seeing an up. With his obedience.
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And actually in my pastor's page this month I wrote about this. And what I wrote is that even though Abraham's faith journey ebbs and flows between faithfulness and faithlessness, the
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Lord is always faithful. The very reason Abraham is able to bounce back is because the Lord restores him each time.
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The Lord stands by Abraham, allows him to see what he did wrong, feels sorrow for it, and change.
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And the text does not mention his repentance clearly or explicitly, but the fact that he acts in faith after lapsing into faithlessness implies that he felt sorrow and turned from sin and moved toward faithfulness.
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And that's our journey in the life of faith. We do something wrong. We disobey
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God. And the Lord restores us. And we show true repentance by a life of change, by turning from whatever sin we committed.
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And Abraham here, after doubting that God could give them a son in their old age, bounces back.
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He shows faith by listening to the instructions that God gave him. This is how we see that in verse 23.
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Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born in his house, or bought with his money every male among the men of Abraham's house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him.
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Abraham knew that if he did not follow these instructions, these blessings the Lord promised him were not going to happen.
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There's a lot on the line here. He knew what he needed to do. The Lord commanded this and he did it.
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And in verse 2 of this chapter, the Lord told him that he needed to be blameless for this covenant to happen. He needed to submit to the
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Lord and obey what he told him. In a word, he needed to be faithful. He needed to be faithful.
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That's what the Lord calls us to be. He calls us to be faithful. Abraham demonstrates his faithfulness by being circumcised himself and also circumcising his entire household.
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And even though Abraham did not have any biological children at this point, besides Ishmael, he had a full house of people because he had servants.
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Abraham was wealthy. And so these are the people who are circumcised with him. And everybody needed to be circumcised including
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Ishmael. Ishmael would only have the multitude of offspring that were promised to him if he was circumcised.
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So Abraham's entire household and Ishmael listened to these instructions and they were circumcised.
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Abraham followed these to a T. And we need to do this too. And I'm not talking about circumcision specifically.
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I'm just saying general obedience. We need to follow these instructions the Lord has given us.
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If you were to hire someone to paint your house bright red, I'm not sure why you might do that.
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I don't know. But if you were to tell someone, hire someone to paint your house bright red, and you went away for a few days and they finished the job and you showed up and it was dark red, what would you say to that?
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Would you say, you know what, close enough? Or would you say, no, I hired you to paint this house bright red and you painted it dark red.
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So you need to fix it or I'm going to go hire someone else to fix the job that you did not do.
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Now when the Lord gives us instructions, He expects us to follow them precisely the way He told us to follow them.
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We need to conform our entire life to God's ways. Not half -heartedly following Him, but following His instructions fully.
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Not just following Him in some areas, but following Him in every area. And this should be convicting to everyone here, because if we're honest, we don't do that a lot of the times.
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We don't follow the Lord fully in areas where we should. We don't do everything that He calls us to do.
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And in areas where maybe we do follow Him some, we're not fully obedient. Now verses 24 and 25 tell us how old
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Abraham and Ishmael were when they were circumcised. It says here Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
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And Ishmael, his son, was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. So Ishmael being 13, that means that this is 13 years after the foolish plan that Sarah and Abraham did.
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And so the fulfillment of this promise is nearing oh so close. They're almost there.
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I mentioned that Abraham following these instructions is an up in his faith journey. And we know this not only because he followed these instructions, but also by how quickly he responded to these instructions.
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Verse 26 says, That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised, and all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.
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So the quickness with which he responds shows his diligence and desire to obey.
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Abraham did not waste any time. Verse 24 also says that he circumcised everyone in his house immediately.
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And how quickly do you and I respond with precision to the Lord's commands? We too need to be precise and prompt in our obedience to the
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Lord. Sometimes we should follow Abraham. Sometimes we shouldn't.
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There's actually a verse in 1 Corinthians 11. It says, Paul said, Follow me as I follow the example of Christ.
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In other words, he's saying, When I follow Jesus, follow me. When I don't follow Jesus, don't follow me.
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And we should be able to say that as Christians. And so here, we can follow Abraham's example.
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And you might ask, What precise obedience does the Lord expect from me? I did not hear an audible voice like Abraham did.
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The angel of the Lord did not appear to me and tell me what I was supposed to do. The answer to that is the
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Lord has spoken. And he has spoken with crystal clarity in this book, The Word of God.
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He's spoken to us. The Bible is full of commands where God tells you what he expects from you.
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And the question we need to ask ourselves is, How closely do you follow the Bible? We need to read it, understand it, and live it out.
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And when we understand what the Lord expects from us, We need to act it out as he has told us. And you can see why it's so important to know the
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Bible. We don't want this book to collect dust on our shelf, right?
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We want to be people who read the Bible, Who not just are disciplined to read the
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Bible, But want to read the Bible. That's the kind of church we're building here.
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People who love God. And if you love God, you love the Word of God. Because that's where you meet him.
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That's where you find him. If you belong to Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells within you. And he is your companion to guide you through the life of faith.
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And as you know more of the Bible, He tells you what you are learning. When you face a circumstance,
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He'll bring a verse to mind. But how can you bring that verse to your mind Unless you've studied it, right?
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Romans 12, 2 says that we are transformed, how? By the renewing of your mind.
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God's given you a mind to learn the Bible. That's how the Holy Spirit works in your life. And God does not just save you as a believer
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When you first come to faith. He transforms you. And he does it by laying out the instructions
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Of how to be godly right in front of you. We have it in the pages of scripture. And this is not duty -driven, okay?
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This is joy -driven. You'll notice on the wall when you come in,
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It says, In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. The path of following God is the path of joy.
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And the devil is going to try to lie to you. He's going to try to tell you all these other things. They're so much better. But the path of joy is the path of following Jesus Christ.
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And so all of our obedience, All of the instructions that we receive from the Lord, These are instructions that are delightful.
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We want to follow them because this is the path of life. So this is the second area.
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The Lord's price proclamation does not change. It does not change in that the obedience must match perfectly the command.
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The command the Lord has given us. So to summarize here, The Lord's precise proclamation does not change.
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And we've seen two areas in this text today. The first area is the fulfillment matches perfectly the prediction.
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The second area is the obedience must match perfectly the command. And what we must understand is that we worship a
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God who is precise in all that he speaks and does. When he says it, it happens.
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And it happens exactly how he said it would. This brings glory to him. He who knows everything is able to do this.
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And he does not go with a plan B or fulfill it in a different way than he said. But he fulfills it exactly. And this shows his precision.
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We must also understand that he expects his people to listen to him closely. To carry out what he says precisely.
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And he tells us to live the life that he has called us to live. As it's laid out in his holy word.
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Now next week, we will see the account of three mysterious men who show up at Abraham's door.
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And the Lord cares deeply how this man is going to respond. And how we respond to circumstances like we'll see next week.
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Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we close here,
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I just want to say thank you for the ministry of the preaching of the word of God.
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Lord, the people here don't need to hear my opinions. They just need to hear from you. What you say.
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Because everything you say is right. Everything you say is what we need to hear. Everything we need for the life of faith is in the word of God.
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And so Lord, may we feast on this. May we meditate on it. May we fill our minds and grow as a result of what we see in the word.
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Lord, we praise you for your precision. And may we be precise in our response to the commands you've given us.